Kotaku was able to translate an interesting study that was commissioned by the Swiss government. In it, they found that the country's current piracy laws of allowing users to download copyrighted files for personal use should stay. Their reasoning for is because it actually encourages people to purchase more stuff.
The study was based on its own research as well as data from a similar Dutch study in 2009. There two main conclusions were two-fold 1) That most pirated software (games, movies, and music) did not decrease sales in their respected industry. Downloaders' budgets remained consistent whether they pirated; it simply complemented their regular entertainment budget.
2) That pirating content actually encourage people to spend more money on the things they were downloading. For example, those who were downloading games were also found to actually be the biggest spenders on games. This argument has been used for quite some time now, but the Swiss government actually believe in it.
Though this only represents one country, it doesn't mean that it can't be applied elsewhere. It's also nice to see that there's establishments out there that understand this new digital age, especially when compared to many other Western countries.
